the person I became didn’t match up with the person they’d thought I would be.
“Janice and I have a lot of differences, but the one thing we have in common is that we both love our children more than anything in this world.” Dad paused a moment, then added, “And if things do go badly for him, just know that your mom and I will do what we can to help.”
I hoped Dean was okay. I was worried about him, and I was proud of him, but mostly I hoped he was okay. He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone and now his mom was going to tell everyone. It didn’t matter that we were only seventeen; people were going to talk about us. They’d devour the juicy drama of our lives, and there wasn’t much we could do to stop it. And all I wanted to do was hold his hand and tell him we’d get through this together, but there was no “us” anymore.
“You really cared about him, didn’t you, Dre?”
I nodded. “I still do.”
“While I don’t approve of the sneaking around, I’m glad you boys found each other, and I’m sorry that it ended.”
“What do you think’s gonna happen?” I asked. “After the press conference?”
“With what?”
“The election?” My phone buzzed on my nightstand, but I ignored it. Probably just Mel.
I had to change the subject so that I didn’t lose myself thinking about Dean. He’d made his decision to end us because he was scared of people finding out. Now that everyone was gonna know, he might reconsider. He’d already said he was sorry. But, no. I couldn’t think like that. He hadn’t even given me a chance to fight for us. He’d just broken up with me and that was it. I wasn’t giving him a second chance to hurt me.
“I don’t know,” Dad said.
“Do you think it’ll help McMann?”
“People are strange, Dre. They don’t always do what’s in their own self-interest. They vote for the person they think is the most attractive or the person they think they’d most enjoy having a beer with, and not for the person who is the most prepared to do the job or who would keep them safe. I don’t think there’s any way to predict how voters are going to react.”
“Did I cost you the election?”
“If you being happy is the price of losing, then I’m happy to lose.”
“But I’m not happy,” I said. “I miss him.”
“I know you do.” Dad’s phone rang. His ringtone was still set to the default because he didn’t know how to change it and was useless when it came to that stuff. He looked at the screen. “I have to take this.”
Even though I missed Dean and was about to have my life splashed all over everywhere, I felt better now that my parents knew. I wasn’t sure how I felt about everyone knowing, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to stop that.
“What?!” my dad was saying into the phone, and my own phone was buzzing again. I was about to see what the hell Mel thought was so damn important when my mom showed up.
“They’re all over Facebook and Twitter. They’re everywhere.”
“What’s all over Facebook and Twitter?”
I grabbed my phone and there were a million messages from Mel, but also some from Julian and Dhonielle and Caleb asking me if I was okay and why didn’t I tell them and wondering if it was even true.
I clicked on one of the links Mel had sent me and there we were. Me and Dean. Kissing. I recognized the selfie we’d taken in his bedroom right before his friends had shown up. It’d only been up for an hour and it had already been shared over fifty thousand times.
“Well,” I said. “So much for the press conference.”
Dean
I SPENT THE following day hiding. Wallowing would be more precise. Pictures of Dre and me and our personal conversations from Promethean had been posted and reposted all over the internet, seen and spread by millions. We had become an internet meme, the punch line of an SNL Weekend Update joke, and our official ship name was Drean, which sounded to me like a household cleaning product. My mother and Dre’s father had canceled their planned joint press conference and had instead issued separate statements confirming that Dre and I had been in a relationship, condemning the leak of our private conversations and photos, and asking that we be left alone.
I made the unwise decision